HAVANA TIMES – In today’s Cuba, politics seems to be written in nervous ink and tourism runs on an intermittent water supply. At one extreme, an official reads a speech while his hands tremble; at the other, a visitor leaves a hotel without even having been able to take a shower. Between these two episodes lies a country gripped by crisis: the solemnity of international meetings, the rhetoric of confrontation, and everyday life reduced to a succession of shortages.
The image of Cuba’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ernesto Soberon, or any official appearing before a camera with visibly shaking hands, carries a force that transcends official language. The speech may speak of resistance, sovereignty, continuity, and diplomatic victories, but the body tells another story.
The trembling, although it may have any number of personal or medical causes, becomes, in the public eye, an image of the national mood. It is not enough to listen to what is being said: people also observe how it is said, what tension seeps through the gestures, and how much effort it takes to maintain the appearance of normality.
In political systems accustomed to carefully staged appearances, the bodies of leaders also communicate. An overly long pause, a vacant stare, a sheet of paper shaking between someone’s fingers, or a hand that cannot remain still can have more impact than a carefully crafted sentence. Not because these gestures allow anyone to diagnose an illness or assign responsibility—that would be reckless—but because they reveal the human fragility behind the institutional façade.
The image takes on greater significance when it appears against a backdrop of accumulated discontent. Cuba is experiencing a profound economic crisis marked by inflation, shortages, blackouts, fuel scarcity, and declining purchasing power. Every official statement about “resisting” reaches households where resistance comes at a concrete price: hours without electricity, more expensive food, nonexistent transportation, and services that have stopped functioning. Against this backdrop, any sign of tension in a government official is interpreted as a reflection of the collective strain.
Meanwhile, Miguel Díaz-Canel has once again placed grievances at the center of his international discourse. The Cuban president has referred to a meeting held at the United Nations and questioned, according to his statements, the treatment he received or the way the meeting unfolded. Cuban diplomacy typically presents such episodes as evidence of the isolation imposed by the United States and the hostility of certain governments. The argument follows a familiar pattern: Cuba denounces, the world listens, and the government transforms the disagreement into proof of permanent aggression.
But foreign policy cannot be separated indefinitely from domestic policy. Denouncing an affront at the UN may have symbolic value, but its effectiveness diminishes when citizens perceive that the government devotes more energy to responding to its external adversaries than to explaining its own failures. The international stage offers a prestigious audience, but the population judges government performance by more immediate standards: whether there is electricity, whether transportation works, whether medicines are available, whether wages are enough to live on, and whether a visitor can take a shower in a hotel marketed as a tourist destination.
In this same atmosphere, Díaz-Canel has called author Orlando Gutierrez Boronat a “terrorist.” The accusation, an extremely serious one, fits into the Cuban political language of absolute condemnation. Instead of discussing facts, evidence, and judicial procedures, those in power frequently resort to labels intended to shut down debate. “Terrorist,” “mercenary,” “enemy,” and “counterrevolutionary” are not merely adjectives: they function as mechanisms to strip opponents of legitimacy and turn any criticism into a threat against the nation.
An accusation of this magnitude should be accompanied by verifiable information, publicly available evidence, and legal safeguards. Otherwise, it risks becoming a propaganda tool. State security should not be used as a substitute for transparency, nor should a presidential press conference take the place of the courts. In a democratic society, even when facing serious accusations, the responsibility is to prove them, not simply to apply a label.
The problem is not limited to a single speech or individual. It is a political culture built over decades around suspicion. Criticism is interpreted as conspiracy; protest as a foreign operation; disagreement as betrayal. This defensive reflex may have helped maintain cohesion during periods of geopolitical confrontation, but today it produces the opposite effect: it widens the gap between the authorities and a citizenry that no longer readily accepts the explanations handed down from the past.
The Contradictions of Cuba’s Tourism Industry
The crisis is also evident in tourism, one of the sectors touted as the country’s economic salvation. The case of a tourist who complained about the Melia Trinidad hotel because he could not take a shower sums up, with almost literary precision, the contradictions of Cuba’s tourism industry. The country needs visitors and foreign currency, yet it cannot guarantee basic services. A hotel may preserve a colonial façade, offer attractive photographs, and appear in international travel catalogs, but if there is no water in the guestroom bathroom, the entire promise falls apart.
For the guest, the experience is not a macroeconomic abstraction. It is a suitcase, a paid reservation, a tired body, and the minimal expectation of being able to turn on a faucet. Being unable to take a shower turns the trip into a test of endurance. What management may consider an “operational incident” (the water is shut off at nine in the morning and restored at six in the evening) becomes, for the customer, a breach of the moral and commercial contract. Tourists are not simply paying for a bed: they are paying for predictability, hygiene, service, and the feeling that, for a few days, life will function as it should.
The anecdote takes on broader significance because Cuban tourism faces structural problems. Lack of maintenance, deteriorating facilities, shortages of supplies, energy difficulties, and inadequate staff training all effect service quality. Added to this is fierce regional competition: visitors can choose among numerous Caribbean destinations, many of which offer better connections, more reliable infrastructure, and a clearer relationship between price and experience.
Cuba hopes to attract tourists while its hotels suffer from the same limitations as the rest of the economy. The island cannot indefinitely sustain a dual system in which establishments receive hard currency but operate in an environment of severe shortages. Visitors witness this contradiction at the reception desk, in the restaurant, or in their hotel bathrooms. Advertising can sell beaches, history, and hospitality; the absence of water tells another story, one that is more powerful and less flattering.
Moreover, tourism does not function through promotional campaigns alone. It depends on an entire chain of services: transportation, electricity, supplies, connectivity, security, cleanliness, and the ability to respond to problems. When one link fails, the destination’s reputation suffers. In the age of social media, an individual complaint can travel around the world in a matter of hours. The tourist’s experience ceases to belong solely to the hotel and becomes part of the country’s international image.
This is how the week’s three episodes are connected: the official’s trembling hands, the president’s protest at the UN, and the shower that never came. They are different scenes, but they share the same tension between image and reality. The official image insists on stability, dignity, and resistance. Reality reveals exhausted bodies, institutions on the defensive, and services incapable of meeting basic needs.
In the end, a country can endure many slogans, but it cannot live on them indefinitely. A trembling hand does not, by itself, prove the weakness of a government; a hotel complaint does not define an entire industry; a dispute at the UN does not determine a nation’s standing. But when these images accumulate, they form a narrative, and Cuba’s current narrative is that of a government trying to project strength while everyday life quietly asks something much simpler of it: less heroic rhetoric and more normalcy.